UK threatens Brexit negotiations with trade proposals
An Oxford Economics research briefing released on Wednesday said that recent events had reduced the likelihood that the UK and the EU would come to a mutual agreement on their divorce as Britain appears to have made little effort to progress the separation talks.
With the next round of talks between the two set to take place next week, the UK government has presented several of its proposals for Britain in a post-EU world by way of position papers written by prominent cabinet ministers that seemed to dent Andrew Goodwin, lead UK economist at Oxford Economics' confidence on the ability of any Brexit talks regarding separation and transition to come to a successful conclusion.
The government's handling of questions surrounding transition has added to the uncertainty.
When the UK agreed to the sequencing of talks it accepted the European Council's demands that separation issues would be the first topic of conversation, with future trading agreements not to be discussed until sufficient progress had been made on the former, Goodwin argued.
Hence, Goodwin believed that any attempts to shift focus towards trade agreements would be a "risky strategy," as if no progress is made on the topic of separation then the EU could possibly look to leave the table as chief negotiator for the EU, Michael Barnier has been given a mandate from the European Council to negotiate on separation and separation only.
In his report, Goodwin re-forecast the probability of the talks leading to a successful agreement from 70% to 60%, saying that as no credible post-Brexit customs arrangement had been proposed it was likely that the UK will have to sit through transitional agreements before any form of future free-trade agreement was discussed.
The 40% chance of failure is the worst it has been this year and is just ahead of a 'no deal' scenario.